Former Bardstown Bourbon Co. employee says boss used gay slurs, bullied women
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- At least three more women filed formal complaints about their treatment.
- Complaints reported slurs and coercive conduct to board and executives.
- Founders left in 2019 amid investor turmoil; sale occurred in March 2022.
One of at least four women who filed complaints about their treatment at Bardstown Bourbon Company, the subject of a whistleblower employment discrimination lawsuit, told the Herald-Leader her boss used gay slurs and bullied a younger woman to drink at a company event.
Samantha Montgomery, national brand ambassador for Bardstown Bourbon Company from May 2018 to fall 2022, filed a complaint to the board of directors in September 2021 alleging improper conduct by her boss, Herb Heneman, then head of marketing.
In an interview with the Herald-Leader, Montgomery said she felt Heneman had faced no real consequences.
“I stuck it out for another year, but I felt set up to fail,” Montgomery said. After her complaint, Heneman would “forget” to invite her to the national sales meeting or do other things “to make me look unprepared or not needed,” she said.
Her allegations mirror those in the whistleblower lawsuit filed by Sylvia Sanders, former vice president of human resources, who laid out a pattern of employment discrimination under former CEO Mark Erwin — now CEO of its parent company, Lofted Spirits — that included firing or driving out at least six women executives.
According to Montgomery’s Sept. 12, 2021, complaint, obtained by the Herald-Leader, she was working at the Nashville Cocktail Festival with Heneman and at least one other younger brand representative, also a woman.
During the event, Heneman made comments about two men using derogatory slurs for gay people, Montgomery alleged in her complaint to the board.
Heneman pressured the other woman Bardstown Bourbon Company representative, who also later filed a complaint, to take shots. When she refused, he made jokes at her expense, Montgomery said, telling her, “We gotta show you the ropes.”
Later, at a bar, Montgomery said in her complaint, Heneman repeatedly confronted another customer, then said to Montgomery and the other Bardstown Bourbon employees, “I’m about to get into a fight with this big, Black guy.”
Afterward, Montgomery felt compelled to act.
“I’m formally filing this complaint because it’s important that the people Bardstown Bourbon Company sends out into the market as representatives are held to a standard. A standard that does not tolerate bigoted language, bully(ing), or reckless behavior,” Montgomery told the board, as well as CEO Mark Erwin and COO John Hargrove.
“Truth be told, I’ve noticed this behavior several times before and haven’t had the courage to come forward until now. Because this behavior is recurring, and the person is my boss, it’s made my day-to-day attitude about my job daunting. ... What is wrong is when overindulging leads to actions that are not only detrimental to the brand and the impression it leaves on guests who witness it, it’s also completely toxic to the internal culture at Bardstown Bourbon Company.”
Montgomery said she alerted Hargrove the complaint was coming. He asked to tell Erwin, and Erwin apparently tipped off Heneman, Montgomery said.
On the day the complaint arrived, Erwin announced Heneman was on a medical leave for two weeks. When Heneman returned, he blamed a blood pressure medication for making him appear intoxicated at times. Heneman ended up getting sympathy rather than criticism, Montgomery said.
Heneman said in a written response to the Herald-Leader: “I unequivocally deny these allegations, which are untrue and unsupported by evidence.”
Other complaints
During her tenure at Bardstown Bourbon Company, Montgomery said, she was told there were at least two other women who filed complaints against the company and received settlements. One was a new mother whose job was eliminated while she was on maternity leave.
The other was a server in Bardstown Bourbon’s restaurant who had waited on a table of VIPs who were ordering vintage pours of whiskey worth hundreds of dollars each. The party tipped $1,000, but the server didn’t get the money, Montgomery said.
“Mark (Erwin) decided it was too much money,” Montgomery said. Montgomery said she was told by her then-superior that the money went to the company instead of the server.
Neither incident was included in the former head of HR’s whistleblower lawsuit.
“This place was run by disgusting envious men, who are constantly downplaying women,” Montgomery said.
When Bardstown Bourbon Company changed
It wasn’t always that way, she said. When she started in 2018, under founders David Mandell, Daniel Linde and Garnett Black, she said, “It was an exciting time. We were launching a brand, our restaurant, adding tours. ... They were great bosses. We felt valued and heard and included.”
All that changed, she said, when silent investor Peter Loftin got involved after the restaurant opened in 2018.
Their first meeting ended with shouting and then an apology.
Mandell told the servers the board of investors was coming in, and to keep the bar open late. No one knew who Loftin was, she said, much less that he was the majority shareholder in Bardstown Bourbon Co.
When they arrived, Loftin “was incredibly intoxicated,” Montgomery said, to the point where she did not feel she could legally serve him any more alcohol.
“He asked me to pour him a drink to go,” she said. She professionally declined.
“Raging mad and raging drunk, he screams at me that ‘I own every (expletive) bottle on that wall. ... If I want a (expletive) drink to go you’re going to (expletive) make it,’” Montgomery recalled. “I was shell-shocked. ... I’m ashamed to say I poured him that drink and didn’t say a word.”
Five minutes later, she said, he told her she was “very pretty” and “insisted we take a group picture, that I stand beside him, and he put his hand around my waist. I remember going home and sitting on my bed crying.”
The next morning, Loftin emailed an apology to her via Black.
Montgomery, who no longer in the spirits industry, said she thinks that evening was a turning point for Bardstown Bourbon Company.
“It became clear to Peter, in that moment, nobody really knew who he was. ... He started coming to the distillery. He wanted to be celebrated,” Montgomery said. “Less than a year after that event, they said David ‘stepped down,’ although nobody believed it. Then Peter brought in Mark, who had absolutely no experience in spirits. I think everything after that came from a place of (Erwin’s) incompetence as a leader.”
Mandell and the others left the company in the fall of 2019. Mandell declined to comment for this story.
Within a month, Loftin died, leaving his estate in financial disarray, including $125 million in tax liabilities owed to the IRS. Bardstown Bourbon Company was purchased by Pritzker Private Capital in March 2022 for an undisclosed price.
Erwin was elevated to Bardstown Bourbon’s parent company, Lofted Spirits, where he remains as CEO.
Erwin told the Herald-Leader the “allegations against me and my team are false. We have substantial evidence to prove this and will vigorously defend ourselves in a court proceeding, not in the media.”
A spokesperson for Bardstown Bourbon Company said in a statement, “As we have said previously, we believe these claims are without merit. We will vigorously defend ourselves during the legal process. We are not going to litigate this in the press. We will not comment on personnel matters of current or former employees as we treat these as confidential.
“We take personnel matters seriously and will continue to take all actions necessary to move our company forward with honesty, integrity, and trust.”
